Marqt’s Digital Transformation-Team 8

The Dutch supermarket industry revenue amounts to 41.3 billion euros a year (Euromonitor 2015) and it keeps growing annually. Namely, the associated profitability and the increasing trend for online shopping have strongly influenced the strategies of players in this industry. In 2014, Dutch supermarkets sold 450 million euros worth of groceries through the Internet, which is a 55% increase in comparison to the previous year (Boogert 2015).

The most relevant grocery retail trends spin around online presence, the development of mobile applications and the emphasis on low prices as those incorporate the growing mobility and price sensitiveness of individuals. However, more and more awareness is also being raised in the field of conscious purchasing, food waste reduction and the use of the so-called “ugly foods”.

Our project deals with how the Dutch supermarket chain “Marqt” could effectively align its strategy in order to adapt to the ongoing trends of digital commerce and sustainable product offerings. Marqt is a supermarket chain centered on providing real and original foods that must be locally and sustainably produced and that may not contain any artificial additives. Mostly for this reason, its main customer base consists of “trendy” upper-middle class individuals, which is more or less a niche market. Due to the absence of a loyalty card program, an online store or a mobile app combined with the presence of a weak IT infrastructure, a few options that could aid into the digital transformation of the company were identified and throughly examine so that the supermarket chain would be able to increase its reach and attract more customers.

Marqt already targets food-conscious customers, who value the quality and source of the products they purchase as opposed to only a low price. Therefore, a three phase technology strategy was developed to strengthen Marqt’s unique market position. The first phase consists of an ugly food campaign and the development of a mobile application to expand the customer base. The second phase is an upgrade of the application and the implementation of bundle sales to achieve new cost savings. Finally, the third phase is the development of a full-fledged mobile application creating big data analysis and predictive shopping opportunities. This three phase solution, with iterative strategy adaptation would allow Marqt to develop their technology step-by-step, to ensure its success.

Regarding the resulting benefits, upon careful analysis of the implementation plan, it was estimated that the process would benefit Marqt by increasing customer reach, overall sales and decreasing costs through economies of scale. Furthermore, Marqt would achieve competitive advantage as the first sustainable supermarket with a mobile application and would effectively make use of big data analytics. On the other hand, customers would benefit from quick deliveries, low prices and new bundle services, while the rising distribution of ugly foods would decrease food waste.

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